This Issues in Communication narrative is designed to provoke thought and discussion about topics discussed in the chapter.

Tim, Chris, and Calvin came from the same high school and were excited that they were able to enroll in the same communication class. The teacher, Dr. Matheny, explained the process of putting together a speech and stressed that all students should select a topic and begin researching the speech. Tim, Chris, and Calvin took three very different approaches to implementing Dr. Matheny’s suggestion.

Tim’s strategy was to start early and get done quickly. He went to the library that evening and asked the reference librarian how to find newspaper articles on the library’s electronic database system. After a quick lesson, Tim typed in his speech topic, napster, and hit search. Tim hit a goldmine of hundreds of newspaper articles related to the topic, and he printed five that looked interesting. He was well on the way to being done.

Chris wanted to give a speech about something she already knew. She had worked at a daycare center, KiddiLand, since she was a junior in high school and she felt comfortable talking about that topic. She was able to use personal examples about how daycare staff were trained at KiddiLand, what activities she conducted with the toddlers, and how the staff had to constantly work to prevent germs from spreading throughout the center. Chris was satisfied. She had plenty of examples from KiddiLand to use in her speech, and she did not have to spend time in the library like Tim.

Calvin wanted to speak on the dangers of using cell phones. Calvin knew of two people who got into car accidents because they were talking on their cell phones and he knew there had to be other things wrong with cell phones. Calvin used the computer in his dorm room to access the Internet. He went to Yahoo! and searched for “cell phone dangers.” One site, called “safecell.com,” featured several pages worth of information on why cell phones pose extreme risk to users. The site even offered products from the company that could make cell phones safer. Calvin printed out several pages of information from the site—everything from statistics to examples of people who had cancer from using cell phones. Calvin, like his friends, would be done as soon as he typed the outline.

Three days later, Chris, Calvin, and Tim delivered their presentations. Each of the students had excellent delivery, and they all felt that their speeches went well. When Dr. Matheny returned their speech evaluation forms, Tim, Chris, and Calvin were shocked to find that they received low B grades on their speeches. On each speech critique sheet Dr. Matheny had written, “Review notes on how to effectively research your speech.”

Apply what you have learned in this chapter as you ponder and discuss the following questions: What advice would you give Tim, Chris, and Calvin for addressing Dr. Matheny’s comments in their next speech? What mistakes did each of the speakers make and how could the students have done a better job of researching their speech topics?